EROMANGA
HALL OF FAME

After a five-year gap between collections, this book won its readers over with the bustle of its pages and the brightness that lingers once they are closed. Puffy Fragrance stands in the hall on those terms.

It is an adult collection of twelve romantic-comedy stories, one of them drawn new for the book, running to just over 200 pages. The premises range widely: a heroine who loves books, a young lady of good family, a partner met in VR, a childhood friend, a student-council president; some of the stories are set at school. Each story keeps to a single couple, and lovers or mutual crushes are at the centre.

What readers agree on is density. Dialogue and sound effects are packed tight into a single panel, and the brisk back-and-forth tumbles along at something close to the timing of a gag strip. Reader after reader, independently, mentions that the book can be read with a laugh and that it never turns dark, leaving a pleasant aftertaste.

Thomas's first collection, Honey Syrup, appeared in 2010, and Sweet Lip, from the same year, placed seventh in a readers' poll. Coming five years after Kimi ga Tame Kokorogeshou, this is the fourth collection and the third from Wanimagazine. The stories ran in COMIC Kairakuten BEAST, and the print edition was accompanied by a store-exclusive limited version.

It ranks 131st among the hall's commercial works. No contemporary review devoted to it survives; what carried the book this far was the steady accumulation of readers' voices in the stores.